


Liminal Space

by timedork



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: and their new glowing alien roommate, his old school friend who's now a cop, his youtuber step-grandson, sometimes a family is a recently bereaved retired bus driver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:42:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timedork/pseuds/timedork
Summary: Liminal space(Noun)A space of transition, waiting, and not knowing.(or, what happens between Grace's death and her funeral.)





	Liminal Space

**Author's Note:**

> hello everybody, i come bearing proper fanfic!! this is hopefully gonna end up being seven little one shots, one for each day the doctor spends crashing at graham and ryan's place -- i know it was never specified how long the gap was but i really don't think it was more than a week. i'm mostly gonna be winging this because while i had a few ideas for it a few months back i never ended up writing them down and forgot them, yikes. can't promise a regular posting schedule because my motivation is practically non-existent, but nice comments might wake it up, wink wink.

The world is comprised entirely of shapes.

The ground is a large swathe of brown, broken up by silver blobs of puddles catching the lights. Over to the left is the blue box – and her hearts ache at the sight of it because it’s not _her_ blue box – of the security hut. The cranes are two long narrow rectangles of red stretching up into the sky, tiny fluorescent rectangles moving around at the base as police and paramedics mill around the white shape on the ground that’s –

The Doctor swallows past the hard lump that’s suddenly in her throat, screws her eyes shut tight and rubs at them with her fists like a small child furiously trying to stay awake, tilting her head away so she doesn’t have to look at Grace’s sheet covered body.

She’s tired, and not just physically.

When she opens her eyes again her vision has regained full clarity. She studiously stares at the trees on the other side of the fence so she doesn’t have to look anywhere near the scene just a few metres in front of her.

“Hey.”

The sound of Ryan’s low voice makes her turn. He leans against the police car beside her, looking as tired as she feels.

“Hey,” the Doctor returns, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears.

Ryan nods over at the police officer currently interviewing Yaz and Graham. “They say we need to go down to the station soon so they can take statements.”

“Right.”

They both watch as the officer jots down notes while Yaz feeds him what they all hope is a believable story as to why five people, one of them dressed in a suit two sizes too big, all came to be on a building site at this time of night, and how it ended in the demise of one of them.

The silence between them is thick with grief. The Doctor itches to say something, to fill the space with words, but despite all the death and loss she’s seen throughout her long life, she has no idea what to say. What do you say to a boy who’s grandmother would still be alive if she hadn’t met you?

Thankfully she’s spared by Ryan gesturing at her chest, looking awkward. “It’s happening again. You’re, uh, doing the weird glowy thing.”

The Doctor peers down and sure enough there’s a hint of gold flickering above the collar of her oversized shirt, not unlike the purple DNA bomb planted there earlier that evening. “Huh. So I am.”

“Are you like half firefly or something?”

The Doctor snorts at that. “Nope. Guess I’m still not done yet. Need a couple more hours kip on that comfy sofa of yours, I reckon.” Her cells no longer feel like they’re on fire, instead suffused with a gently burning warmth that’s almost pleasant in the chill of this dreary October night, but now that the adrenaline of chasing down and stopping Tim Shaw has worn off she’s acutely aware of the dull ache running throughout her entire body.

She hooks two fingers in the shirt collar and tugs it away from body so she can get a better look at the golden lights swirling under the pale skin of her collarbones, curling around the sharp planes. Then she spots something – two somethings, actually – that shouldn’t be unexpected but still manages to take her by surprise, given that she’s otherwise been distracted since regenerating.

“That explains the strange jiggling sensation I feel whenever I run now,” she beams up at Ryan, who looks like he wants nothing more than for the ground to swallow him whole.

“What are you?” Immediately he winces at the tactlessness of his question and rephrases it: “I mean, who are you?”

The Doctor opens her mouth to answer – and then suddenly her limbs feel heavy, like someone’s pumped concrete into her veins; her arm drops limply to her side as her knees buckle. Though she’s perched on the edge of a patrol car bonnet, the curve of it means it doesn’t offer much support, and she finds herself sliding perilously down towards the ground until a pair of hands catches her under the arms and Ryan heaves her up with a grunt, scooting himself further back onto the hood so they’re more secure, the Doctor’s head flopping against his shoulder. It dimly registers in the back of her groggy mind that it’s been well over a millennia since she was last small enough to be manhandled like this.

“You’re making a habit of this,” Ryan quips.

The Doctor topples sideways so her head’s resting in his lap. Probably a bit too intimate given they still barely know each other, but she’s too exhausted to care. “M’sorry,” she slurs.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” 

Her hearts twist at his words. She hadn’t just been apologising for collapsing on him.

Ryan carefully brushes her hair away from her face. “You can sleep if you want. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

“Ryan Sinclair,” she mutters into his thigh, eyes fluttering shut as his fingers comb through her mussed hair soothingly. “Where would I be without you.”

“Face down in the mud?”

“Not what I meant,” she mumbles, and then sleep hooks its claws into her properly, drawing her down into unconsciousness.


End file.
